Tackling the challenges of aging with expert solutions.

ABC News: Baby Boomers and Alzheimer’s Disease

Alzheimer’s disease is the only one of the top 10 causes of death in America that cannot be prevented, cured or even slowed down once it begins. People live with the progressively debilitating dementia an average of about 10 years.

More than 10,000 baby boomers are turning 65 each day, starting this year, according to the Generation Alzheimer’s report of the Alzheimer’s Association.

After 65, the risk of being struck by the disease doubles every five years, so almost half of people suffer from this disease by 85.

Alzheimer’s has already claimed countless lives, including that of President Ronald Reagan. What this single disease will do in the next few decades boggles the mind with almost 10 million baby boomers expected to die with or from AD. This is one of the biggest predictable humanitarian catastrophes in the history of America.

The biggest aging group in history — the baby boomers — who have transformed our world in so many amazing ways, are about to “shoot themselves in the head” by being the principal supporters of the indiscriminate budget cutting mentality that pervades Washington today.

The boomers started to walk off the Alzheimer’s disease cliff this year, a fact that will not only affect them and their families but destroy the fabric of health care and society for their children and grandchildren because the demented boomers themselves will be an unprecedented burden to health care and society.